


like a memory lost

by Mayarene Rose (Paradise_of_Mary_Jane)



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, Introspection, Mention of Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2017-10-01
Packaged: 2019-01-07 15:28:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12235629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paradise_of_Mary_Jane/pseuds/Mayarene%20Rose
Summary: The thing is, a sick, morbid part of Tim actually likes hanging out in the Grotto.





	like a memory lost

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place after the first episode of season 2.

The thing is, a sick, morbid part of Tim actually enjoys spending time in the Grotto.

It’s quiet there. Empty. Most people don’t actually like spending time in it, which makes it the perfect hiding spot. Too many ghosts. Not very many people like to look at the faces of dead people, rendered with such lifelike accuracy, looming over them. Tim doesn’t either, to be honest, but the silence is a comfort. Tim is used to silence, it’s just about the only familiar thing in this crazy world he found himself in.

He’s new here, anyway, only officially entering Mt. Justice just shy of a month ago; people don’t expect him to truly understand what the Grotto’s supposed to mean. Not yet.

(Tim doesn’t tell them that death hangs over Gotham like a cold blanket. He knows death the way every Gothamite knows death, with the intimacy of cries that closed windows can’t quite keep out, no matter how thick, no matter how far. The sound of crying and death is woven into the city just as much as the blaring horns and wheels on pavement. You learn to sleep with one ear open.

He is Robin and the Batcave is a memorial as much as it is a command center. Batman and Robin have always worked in the shadows and death has always been their cruel mistress.

He knows death.)

He curls himself into a ball whenever he’s there, knees drawn to his chest, head bowed and stares into the face of the Robin that’s not him. He likes the reminder. Likes looking into the face of Jason Todd and think that hey, maybe in a few years’ time, that could be him. He could be in this Grotto, too, probably looking more menacing than he actually is, while another Robin stares up at him and wonders who he could have been.

The mantle of Robin has built up a kind of notoriety within the superhero community. First for being the youngest to take on the mask—It’s a legacy that lingers still. Robin is the child leaping through the streets of Gotham who never grows up—and second, for the unshakable reminder of the stark difference between mask and person.

Three Robins in the span of three years, one dead in the line of duty, and as far as anyone can tell, with the public none the wiser. The mantle lives on, even when the people wearing them don’t; something heroes don’t really like thinking about.  Dick’s transition into Nightwing had been a shock to the superhero community, and Jason’s death (and Tim showing up wearing the cape and mask eighteen months later) had shaken it to the core. Heroes don’t change, except Robin did. Except Robin had already changed twice in the span of three years and it’s almost as if no one’s noticed. Tim still sees it in the old hero’s eyes sometimes, even some of the new ones when they go to the Grotto and find another Robin, or hear the story of how Nightwing was the first. Robin has been flying through the streets of Gotham in the body of a teenager for more than a decade now. Robin is eternal. The people behind the mask? Not so much.

The superhero likes to make themselves seem immortal to the public, infallible. They do such a good job that they end up believing it themselves. The Grotto is a pretty good reminder that they aren’t. Not for the public’s eyes because heroes never die, but for the heroes, to remind them they’ll always be people behind the mask. People who bleed. People who die.

Tim wonders what they’re going to do if a second Robin dies. Will they put a hologram of him right next to Jason, or just forget that there was a second Robin who died? One reminder is enough, should be enough. Two and you begin to question why the problem even exists in the first place.

“Tim.”

Tim nearly jumps. He’s not used to hearing that voice down here.

“Dick,” he says, not turning around. Jason Todd was about Tim’s height, with the exact same hair. His expression is angry, like he’s in the middle of an argument. “I wasn’t expecting you here.”

Dick and Bruce never go down to the Grotto. Their family has their own in the Batcave, though Tim’s noticed that Dick carefully averts his eyes whenever he has to walk past Jason’s case.

(There are days when Bruce would just stare at the case for hours on end. It’s his way of punishing himself, Tim thinks, of reminding himself over and over again of his greatest failure. Tim knows that he should do something—it’s Robin’s job to keep Batman in the light, after all—but the shadow Jason Todd casts is large and dark and suffocating. Tim doesn’t have a chance of beating that.

He can only hold onto the wisps of light Batman still has in him and never let go. He believes that Batman will manage to break through the darkness, eventually, find the final pieces of a puzzle and slot it into place and solve the case and drive away the grief that threatens to drown them all.

Tim believes, and occasionally he can force Batman to believe as well. It’s enough. It _has_ to be enough.)

“I wanted to check on you.” Tim feels a weight drop down right next to him and a warm arm wrapping around his shoulder. He’s better about this kind of thing now, actually leaning into the touch instead of stiffening. Dick’s been wearing him down. “How are you doing?”

“Fine,” Tim says. He doesn’t dare look at Dick. Jason Todd is glaring at Tim, full of accusation. “Sorry.”

“For what, Timmy?”

For nearly getting myself blown up. He’d seen it, the flash of panic in Dick and Bruce’s eyes, just as they were getting closer to another burning warehouse. Tim is all at once their reminder and their means of forgetting. “I said I wouldn’t die.”

The arm around him tightens, fingers digging into his skin.

“You didn’t,” Dick says.

“We nearly did. You trusted me to lead the team and we nearly—“

“But you didn’t,” Dick says again. “You can’t think about what-ifs in this business. It’ll drive you crazy.”

Tim turns his head slightly to look at Dick. His eyes are carefully hooded, staring at the grass, looking at anywhere but what’s right in front of him. Jason Todd might be their biggest what-if. Tim wonders how often Dick thinks of him.

He remembers being much younger and hearing Robin’s cackle piercing the night winds and wondering if he imagined it. It seems like such a distant memory now.

“You did good,” Dick continues. “You saved the civilians and you got yourself and your team out. That’s all that matters.”

“I nearly died. If I had just—“

“Lots of nearlys in our line of work, Timmy,” Dick says quietly. “You can’t change the past.”

They can’t and maybe that’s the problem. Tim stares into Jason Todd’s face; his legacy and his burden. He sees the way the League looks at him, the Robin that came after the one who died. The one who forced himself into this life and stole the mantle from the ghost that haunts it, and wears the colors of a dead boy.

Dick follows his gaze and flinches under a glaring Robin. He turns away.

“I’m sorry,” Tim says.

“Don’t be.” _It’s not your fault._

It feels like it is, or like a wish that came true but not the way it should have gone. Jason was Robin, then he died. Tim is Robin right now. If it weren’t for Jason’s death, he’d still be a little boy in an empty house, following fairytales into the night for no real reason other than _he knows_.

Jason’s legacy. Tim’s burden.

“Tell me about him.” The words come out as a whisper, so easily carried away by the wind if they let it. “Please.”

Dick lets out a shaky breath and Tim almost feels guilty for asking. But there’s a part of him that wants (needs, _craves_ ) to know who he’s meant to be. He is Robin. Dick was Robin before, but he’s Nightwing now. He was the first, and there shouldn’t have been a second except Jason Todd managed to force his way into their world and receive a mask and call himself the boy wonder.

Tim feels like a pretender in his costume. He wonders if Jason ever felt like one.

“I used to call him Little Wing,” Dick says. “He pretended to hate it, but I could see him smile when he thought I wasn’t looking. He tried to steal the tires off the batmobile once. Nearly got away with it, too. That was how Bruce found him.”

And the stories spill out of Dick like water cascading down a cliff, harsh and endless. How Jason’s first mission went wrong and they ended up having to rescue Alfred, how Jason wakes up at night and wanders around the manor, curling himself on the kitchen table sometimes. He always snuck into the library, Dick says, curling around books like Austen and Dickens and Elliot. He actually liked going to school and doing his homework, though he never did have very many friends. Dick tried to teach him how to use escrima sticks but he kept dropping them in favor of using his fists.

Tim thinks he understands what Dick is trying to tell him: Robin is a hero, Jason Todd was a twelve-year-old kid.

“He sounds pretty cool,” Tim says quietly. The two of them are alone at the Grotto, with only the faces of the dead for company.

“He was,” Dick says.

I’m sorry you had to lose him, Tim wants to say. I’m sorry you’re sitting here right now, with your arm wrapped around me when it could have been him. I’m sorry that he’s just another dead face trapped in your memories, glaring at you from an empty room, or a costume collecting dust in a glass case.

Jason Todd died. Tim Drake is Robin now. He wonders what Jason would have felt about that.

“I’m sorry,” Tim says again.

“For what it’s worth,” Dick says. “I’m really glad you’re here with me now.”

Tim exhales, head falling on Dick’s shoulder. Jason looks ahead, and his glare almost softens.

The Grotto is still quiet, but not, Tim thinks, as empty as it was before.

**Author's Note:**

> Um... so the batfam has officially taken over my life so uh,,, expect more of this i guess?? And I started this waay back when season 3 of young justice was announced and only got around to finishing it... now,, so that should give you a pretty good idea of how my life and writing is going right now.  
> Also, I wrote this before I read any of Tim's solo comics so I'm pretty sure the characterization is pretty off but anyways...  
> I'm done rambling  
> (Actually, I'm not but uh... I have a longer yj fic planned but it uh currently lacks a... plot so if there are things you want to see or want to talk about please talk about them and yeah.... that is all... thank you.)


End file.
